Spot Insurance
by Beyond The Mat
Summary: When someone who 'isn't a good guy, or a bad guy, but THE guy' may be the reason your return is being delayed, sometimes you need to take out a little spot insurance. Now, Creative can't bust your balls and have nothing for you: Instead, they're going to ask for your input. So you threw another guy under the proverbial bus. This is a cutthroat business. Sorry not sorry, Roman.


Before a big return, that's usually time for a "random" piss test "Wellness Check." Ha, wellness. Why they even call it that and not "Seeing if you test dirty", I have no idea. "Wellness Check" is a term you usually hear at a veterinarian's office. Here, it's another word for "if I personally fail one more time, I'm out of a job."

And I've been kind of concerned, having kept up with the product from watching at home with my kid, and dropping in at some of the shows, that the old "Creative Has Nothing For You" is going to hit me when I go back. Can't have that. Yeah, I've got a long term contract, but the company has a loophole that if I can't be used properly, basically if they can't get their money's worth out of me, they can let me go.

And let's be honest: I make more money in a year than many people do in a lifetime, so defining "worth" is sort of hard.

And let's be even more honest: I knew I'd test dirty, but there's a way I could fix that. Rather than wait for the phonecall of "Come on in 3 days before we intend to put you back on TV," I left my kid with my mother and stopped in at the last house show before the Money In The Bank Pay Per View, "to say hey."

A lowcarder had made a pre-planned, discreet, quick $50 from texting me to let me know that yeah, they were testing. It's common to do it right before a big event, not as common for routine TV but it's still possible. I wanted this call from any venue in the next 30 days when it was actually happening, that was in an hour's driving distance, so I could "spontaneously drop in." And offer to be tested which also shows a "desire" to come back.

I've been in this company quite a while. I've also been busted twice on this policy, and my job rides on not fucking it up again. This time, though, I'd planned it out. I'm not getting any younger and it's tough to go back without a storyline in place. Especially when the company's been struggling to put a certain person over and they're getting worse results than Cena. The "Roman Empire" was crumbling and to help both myself and him..and yeah, this isn't going to actually hurt the guy, I don't think...I stopped in as I'd planned.

They tend to call people in groups and that's the only thing I couldn't be sure of - which group would I be sent with? Since I was still on the injured list on the roster, it wasn't certain that I'd go in with the other Main Eventers. I could've gone with the low- or Mid-carders.

But as luck would have it (and as I'd hoped), I got called with the Main Eventers. In the pleasantries exchanged before dicks were in hand, pissing, there were backs patted, and "welcome back, man"'s from them to me. It was me, Del Rio, Bray Wyatt, Jericho, Big E and Reigns. To be honest, I didn't care who the fuck I pulled this on, but if I had to pick one to -not- do it to, it would've been Bray. Out of all of them, he deserves success. Del Rio can go anywhere he wants. Jericho needs to get the fuck out of the business, Big E, I don't have any complaints about but I really don't care one way or the other..but Reigns?

His "The Guy" shit had me nervous. So in the same way I'd choose to spare Bray Wyatt (and that he's also a 3rd generation guy like myself also plays into my reasoning), I'd fuck Reigns over for the same reason. His family is not that good. Face it. Outside of The Rock, c'mon. Most of the Samoans were horrible. Look at the one I had been saddled with..Manu. Fuck that guy.

Worse yet, Roman had continuously been on TV during my injury and posed the most serious threat. Bray has his cult fans. Del Rio..well, nobody cares. Jericho comes and goes from the company as he pleases. Big E probably needs the job more than any of us in the room at present. But Reigns? Needed to be knocked down a few pegs, anyway.

If anything, although I would never admit to it (well, if I'm drunk, I might confide to Cody, but that's it), I'm doing the company a favor. "What's best for business." And having been through the testing more than anybody in here, I knew the weaknesses. I knew when both medical staff and fellow talent put their guards up and down.

So it wasn't hard to swap samples with Roman Reigns when the opportunity presented itself. And when he said he "owned it"? Hahahaha...Stupid. "I" tested positive for marijuana. That's a fine. That was his sample. "He" tested positive for Oxycontin that he didn't have a script for. (I didn't have a script for it either, and that's why I needed to swap this shit out.) Had he been a little smarter, he'd have asked just what he tested positive for, and then asked for a retest.

Or maybe Rock had told him that the first strike is more or less bullshit and not to fight it. I don't know, I'm not going to worry about it because if you don't ask immediately for a retest when you test dirty, you lose the right to ask for a do-over. And the last thing I'm going to do is educate the fucking guy about it.

Roman tweeted: "I apologize to my family, friends and fans for my mistake in violating WWE's wellness policy. No excuses. I own it." So fucking naive.

And the company put out their regular statement, but with his name instead of mine. "STAMFORD, Conn. — WWE has suspended Joe Anoa`i (Roman Reigns) for 30 days effective immediately for his first violation of the company's talent wellness policy."

Better him than me. And now with him dropping the title and all that TV time to fill...

...I'm back.


End file.
